Letter: Sex Education is Key to Keeping Teens Healthy (Buffalo News)

The claim that cutting “abstinence-only until marriage” funding somehow jeopardizes children’s health, as claimed in the Aug. 6 Another Voice, could not be more wrong. President Obama’s initiative to redirect funding from failed abstinence- only programs to comprehensive sex education is the right move, and one that is long overdue.

The claim that cutting “abstinence-only until marriage” funding somehow jeopardizes children’s health, as claimed in the Aug. 6 Another Voice, could not be more wrong. President Obama’s initiative to redirect funding from failed abstinence- only programs to comprehensive sex education is the right move, and one that is long overdue.

The Bush administration sunk more than a half-billion dollars into abstinence- only programs. The results are now in: This experiment failed miserably.

The data, including a 2007 study commissioned by Congress and a 2008 literature review of over 50 studies, overwhelmingly shows that abstinence-only-until- marriage programs are ineffective in reducing rates of teen sexual activity, pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. In 2006 and 2007, following a period in which these programs were lavished with federal funds, teen birth rates actually increased for the first time in years. This was matched by sharp increases in the number of teens contracting syphilis and gonorrhea, and a rise in AIDS cases among adolescent males. Meanwhile, public health studies have attributed the previous decrease in teen pregnancy rates not to abstinence, but to improved contraceptive use.

The broad consensus among health experts is that age-appropriate, medically accurate, comprehensive sex education is the best way to arm youth with the information they need to make healthy choices, including the choice to remain abstinent.

Corinne Carey, Public Policy Counsel for the New York Civil Liberties Union